Playmaking One is the first course that the children take with
Scene & Heard.
The first course that children take with Scene & Heard is for those aged 9 – 11. It operates over a school term and consists of nine weekly after-school classes. Each class is a combination of drama and writing exercises. Children work alongside volunteer theatre professionals in a mixture of group activities and one-to-one writing time.

The central focus of the course is The Writing Weekend. The children meet and interview the professional actors who will perform their plays. Each child then spends the weekend writing their own short two-character play for those actors. Each child works alongside their own dramaturg/mentor, who acts as scribe and facilitator. They are encouraged to exercise their imaginations by writing non-human characters, which range from the bizarre to the seemingly impossible!

Teams of actors and directors rehearse the plays and the children see a full rehearsal before the culmination of the course in four public performances. These performances have high production values including spectacular costumes, hand-made cartoon-style props and slick technical effects. Children join the actors for warm-up sessions before each show. For the performance of their play, each child sits in a special ‘Playwright’s Chair’, then takes a bow on stage alongside their professional actors.